


Take Me, Cure Me, Kill Me

by PoisonousAngel



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Character Death, Dragon Age Spoilers, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 05:36:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4907425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoisonousAngel/pseuds/PoisonousAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knows what kadan means. When she looks at him now and these eyes she doesn't know, it's the only word that repeats in her head over and over again.<br/>Spoilers for Trespasser DLC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Me, Cure Me, Kill Me

**_“My fall will be for you, my love will be in you. You were the one to cut me, so I’ll bleed forever.” - Nightwish_ **

 

They say, before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. They don’t say, as your heart breaks, your entire relationship is seen in a blink. Your _dying_ heart.

And on this night, she can see it. Can feel her heart… die.

The Iron Bull is killing her.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 _“Beres-taar,” he says._  


_She watches his mouth carefully, studying the way he moves his lips and the flow of his voice. In the light of the fire inside Herald’s Rest, as music plays just a few feet away, Evie Trevelyan thinks she gets it. With dark brows drawn together, she purses her lips in concentration._

  
_The Bull smiles and repeats terribly slowly, “Beres-taar. Shield.”_

  
_“Beres-taar.”_

  
_He shakes his head with a chuckle and tips back his drink, chugging what little was left before dropping the mug onto the table. “Careful, kadan. Your human is showing.”_

  
_“I’m saying it exactly as you are.”_

  
_“Afraid not. It’s all in the movement of the tongue and the jaw. And believe me, I watch your tongue carefully in many different fashions. One wrong slip and it’s botched. Now you’re communicating differently. You almost sound like you’re saying our word for female genitals, as adorable as that is.”_

  
_Evie hums, tapping her finger on her own half full mug. Drinking in the tavern with Bull and learning sporadic Qunari words has become something of a respite for them, and also somewhat of a requirement. The woman she is figures that since a Qunari is now sleeping in her bed, perhaps it would be good to know his language. And as the Inquisitor with a new alliance, it’s mandatory. She turns to stare at his mouth again. It’s so distinctly shaped, a wide mouth, sculpted lips. She thinks she rather loves the look of his mouth, along with the rest of him. With determination, she tries with all her might to mimic the movement of his mouth and his pronunciation._

  
_“Beres-taar,” she says again._

  
_She does better this time, and he looks proud. “Good job.” He glances around the tavern, notices her weapon propped against the wall nearby. Bull points to it. “Valo-kas. Greatsword.”_

  
_They go on and on, getting more drinks because he wants them, until the cheeks on her pale face are turning a little pink. Evie has great stamina when it comes to alcohol now that she’s sleeping with Bull. She seems to be getting the hang of the flow of his language, so now he’s just pointing at random things for her to repeat. He’s running out of objects with a specific word. Finally, he looks down at his chest._

  
_Pointing to the dragon’s tooth necklace, he says, “Taamsala. Amulet.”_

  
_And Evie touches her own. “Taamsala,” she repeats with fondness._

  
_“That was the best one yet, boss. Your tongue is moving correctly. Lucky for me.”_

  
_In the light of the fire, she thinks he looks wonderful. She thinks he looks wonderful all the time, especially in the armor she crafts for him, but there’s always something about a fire’s light. The flames keep them warm in the great fortress that is Skyhold surrounded by snow, but Evie knows the Bull is warmer still. For too many nights, she’d been cold. Stressed. Alone. With her mercenary captain, she doesn’t feel that way anymore._  
_The Bull is eyeing her now. He doesn’t speak, but his half gaze sweeps over her body. She wants to leave the tavern and follow him back to her quarters. She wants to be somewhere away from everyone else chattering around them and the clinks of metal that make the sounds of war._

  
_She wants to not be around the very empty chair in the corner across the room._

  
_Slowly and carefully, Bull lifts his giant hand, and places his fingertips over her middle. He presses in._

  
_“Imekari,” he murmurs._

  
_That one puzzles her. The more she hears the words, the more she understands that some words paired with others are easy to decipher. She thinks for a moment, then gives up. She blames it on the alcohol as she makes a half-assed guess. “Stomach?”_

  
_The Bull shakes his head. “Imekari. Child.”_

  
_Her first instinct is to scoff, so she does, although her heart does… something at the mention. “Yeah right.”_

  
_He only laughs again, peering inside her cup._

  
_She waits for her heart to stop doing the… something it’s doing. It doesn’t. “The Inquisitor can’t have babies right now.”_

  
_“All in good fun, kadan. Honestly though, Evie, if by some Maker’s miracle I knocked you up, I think I would shit myself.” Bull takes her mug, downs it for her. With a glint in his eye and a smirk on the lips she loves, he asks, “But… want to go pretend to make one?”_

  
_This is why she needs him. In a world of war and death and politics that decide fate, a land of demons and proud magisters they have yet to kill, the Iron Bull keeps her sane and lighthearted. He gives her innocence in life and laughter, along with a kind of pleasure she’s never known before. He gives her careless nights of drinking with a fire and a silly game repeating inane words of his language. She most definitely needs him, every single day. With the Bull, the weight feels less. This is no Corypheus or Inquisition or advisors. There is only him and her._

  
_“Lead the way,” she says, brushing her long dark brown hair back from her flushed face. “Kadan.”_

  
_As they leave the tavern, he wraps an arm around her waist. “You say that one good too,” he tells her, patting her on the ass._

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her armor made of bloodstone and dragon’s scales is heavy on her body and the large blade on her back gives her pain, but as the Inquisitor, as the one who will lead her team through the Eluvians to stop the Qunari invasion, pains and discomforts are trifles Evie is not to give any attention. She must keep everyone at the Winter Palace, in all of Thedas, safe from whatever would harm them. For two years she has been successful, the defeat of Corypheus marking her victory, and even though it seems that in the world of politics her empire is threatened, she will stop at nothing from keeping everyone alive and unharmed. She will not allow another person to suffer the way she has, the way she still does with the anchor tearing her apart.

  
Her dark hair is in a long braid down her back, her eyes lined and shadowed in black for battle and a light touch of red to her lips because she likes the effect it gives her in her armor. And as she enters the Eluvian for the Darvaarad, she ignores the cracks and sharp pangs of her glowing hand that feels like it is killing her.

  
Evie tells her team to get ready. Dorian is her mage and Varric her archer, and with Bull as her warrior partner, she gives him a smile. She’d told him in bed these last couple of nights how proud she is of him, that even though it must hurt him to see his own people causing such havoc, he is still doing what needs to be done for the good of all. She’s kept her eye on him in their earlier battles, watching his back attentively in case he grows a little weary to be slaughtering his own kind, and now is no different. They will stop the dragon’s breath, the _Viddasala_.

  
She lifts her face to give the Bull a smacking kiss on the lips before they storm the Darvaarad.

  
And she feels powerful just from the taste of him.

  
The enemies are worthy of their attention and test them. Evie is somewhat used to their fighting skills, as she has learned much from her lover these past two years. Both Evie and the Iron Bull favor large blades or axes in their grip, and they vanquish the other warriors as Varric triggers Bianca and Dorian is a whirlwind of magic to protect them. They run through the halls of the fortress, chasing the _Viddasala_ so that they can do away with her and her secret weapon, blowing gaatlok along the way. There’s a large, erupting sound that is familiar nearby, and they follow it. Bursting through the doors, Evie spots the dragon.

  
“Dragon’s breath is… an actual dragon?” she asks peculiarly.

  
A Qunari warrior spins and shouts, targeting them. Evie prepares for another fight, her face falling into something dangerous as the _Viddasala_ gives her orders. She hears the word kata, and knows that one means death. Bull has taught her a lot since those nights in the tavern at Skyhold.

  
And then, surprisingly, Evie hears that name that feels and sounds so familiar. A name she hasn’t heard in so long, which will puzzle her later. She knows that name.

  
Before the Iron Bull, her lover was known as _Hissrad_. She hears it now as a plea from the _Viddasala_.

  
The Qunari woman is calling for _Hissrad_. She’s calling for Evie’s lover by a name he has practically given up.

  
Her hand is on fire, but she can still feel her stomach sink. Her mind is screaming in a frantic warning, but her heart is thinking that this Qunari female is a fool. The alliance was with the _reasonable_ ones of their kind, not these rebels. Evie shakes her head, hoping to dull the sense of dread she now feels, the squeezing of her heart and a kind of… guilt that confuses her. She grips her large blade tightly, readies herself and her flanking team. The Inquisitor has survived even the Fade. Because of this threat before her, many more will fall at her and her companion’s feet.

  
And then she hears Bull’s voice. Everything inside her goes numb.

  
“Understood, ma’am.”

  
The only movement Evie can make for a moment is the steady breath in her chest. Time goes still, like a shudder of Vivienne’s magic, and her ears are now deaf to the intense roaring of the dragon beyond. There is a ringing in her head, quickly followed by a terrifying shattering that seems to have come from her chest. When Evie thinks she can move again – and _Maker_ it somehow takes every ounce of her strength – she turns her head and looks at her man. Her betrothed. Her… heart.

  
“Change of plans,” he tells her, brandishing the great weapon she’d made for him. The weapon that is now meant to attack her. His eyes go dead. “Nothing personal… _bas_.”

  
_Bas_ , Evie distantly thinks, her mind responding to Bull saying Qunari words and deciphering them. _Thing_. That’s what she is now.

  
The numbness goes away and Evie is pulsating with a kind of pain that dwarfs the erupting anchor that is killing her.

  
_Bas_ sure sounds a lot like boss.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

_When the Inquisitor is given the chance to breathe, she would rather do it panting against her lover’s mouth._

  
_The Iron Bull, she was quick to discover, has a need for intimacy. It is a great need, and when he wants to sate it, he searches her out. Sometimes he must come up with silly excuses to get her away from Cullen, sometimes he will even make Evie herself believe a lie that something is wrong just so she will leave Josephine. She gives him a little swat for taking her away from work but it is always paired with a grin that is soon replaced by something a little more sensual when he spins her around and presses her against the wall of Skyhold. Evie knows she must tend to the matter of the Inquisition, but she is a woman first, and this woman is desperately in love with a Qunari who drives her crazy._

  
_At the same time, he also keeps her head above the water. It is a complicated emotion that works well for her._

  
_The Bull finds her in her quarters as the sun shines outside of her balconies, glittering against the snowy mountains. Neither of them says a word, and hardly a second goes by before she is sandwiched between him and her desk, his mouth hot on hers._

  
_Kisses are always deep and dirty. Between the Inquisition and the Ben-Hassrath, stolen moments like these are the only time they can make out without the weight of the day pressing on their shoulders as soon as night falls. Evie’s hair is set free down her back and the desk is sinking into the backs of her thighs. Soon he rights this discomfort by lifting her on top of it, standing between her open legs and even hunching some due to their height difference just so he can have access to the very insides of her mouth. There is no need for a pause of breath, there is only breathing against the other, a wet, open-mouthed kiss that makes her feel like a human, and not the Herald of Andraste. When Bull takes her by the hair and yanks her head back, she has no choice by to allow him to go deeper._

  
_Beyond the closed door is the Inquisition. But inside here, there is nothing but the Iron Bull._

  
_He pushes her back onto the desk, covering her with his body. The shove is hard and quick, and a small grunt of surprise is heard from her even as his tongue rolls in her mouth. Evie sucks on his tongue hard, knowing that he likes it, and shivers from the rumbling growl that vibrates in his massive chest. His beard is scratching her face and his weight is a little crushing and he is still somehow pulling on her hair, but they are all thrilling pains. Pains she gladly submits to as long as they come from his hand._

  
_“Bull,” she whispers, her sentence cut off by his demanding mouth that claims hers again. A slippery wet sound is heard as their lips smack apart. “Bull,” she tries again, licking at her lips for more of his taste. Doing that while feeling his erection pressing against her makes her go weak. “There’s no time for a romp on the desk.”_

  
_Like the ropes he ties her with, Bull’s limbs keep her down and exactly where he wants her. Evie opens her eyes and sees his horns moving down, then discovers that he got her tunic unbuttoned at some point. Her breasts are milky white against the tight bindings that hold them, swollen flesh that moves up and down with her soft breathless pants. With one hand he keeps her down. With the other, he gets her legs spread so he can bury his nose between them._

  
_“You smell good, kadan,” he growls against her heat, an animal. An animal who hungers for his mate. “Tasty. I want to eat you up in one big gulp.”_

  
_She groans, wanting to whip off her pants and have him do that without her smallclothes. He’s an expert, and the sight whenever he gets her legs to dangle over his horns is always one that undo’s her. Instead, she grips his forearm and says regrettably, “There’s no time. I can’t.”_

  
_Looking up at her from between her legs, Bull moves his palms over her breasts. “Your tits are telling me something different.”_

  
_A small laugh eases out of her mouth that still tingles from his. “Are they?”_

  
_“Oh yes. You see, I know them quite well. We’re the best of friends, aren’t we, girls?” He squeezes them with his words. “’Please, Evie, please’,” he says, making his voice go higher as he playfully speaks for her breasts, although it is no less arousing. “’Don’t make daddy go away. He keeps us nice and toasty.’”_

  
_He’s over her again, keeping his eye on her bosom as he repeatedly gathers as much of her flesh in his hands as he can. With a smile on her lips and an arch in her back, Evie scolds, “Now, girls.”_

  
_“I’m sorry, kadan, but they love me. I can’t neglect them.”_

  
_“There’s another part of me that doesn’t want your neglect either.”_

  
_“Oh,” Bull murmurs, his eye wandering back between her legs. The place that is flush with his stomach. “Her.”_

  
_It was the wrong thing to say if the issue was the lack of time for a break. But with one of his hands still on her breast as the other goes to her crotch, with the smell and the heat of the Bull, with him so wanting of her, the issue is always moot. She would rather be with him than anyone else. She would rather him look at her like this than the hopeful faces of her Inquisition. To Evie, the world is the one who wears the dragon’s tooth._

  
_“Now she is my favorite,” he mumbles blissfully, tugging at the buttons of her trousers to open them. “The best place in the whole damn world. Oh, and look how happy she is to see me,” he comments after he slides his fingers inside her smallclothes. Of course she’s wet. He always finds her that way in times like these. “This pretty one right here loves the Iron Bull.”_

  
_Under his hand that holds her breast, Evie feels her heart swell so big. She wishes there was no Inquisition or Ben-Hassrath to take them away from each other. And she wishes that she could go back to the dreary day at the Storm Coast, the day she first met him with rain and sea water dripping down his body, if only so that she could fall for him all over again._

  
_”Yes, she does,” Evie murmurs, catching his eye and watching his wide grin spread. “Daddy.”_

  
_He chuckles darkly, leaning down again to sink his teeth into her bottom lip. He sucks her there before he says, “I do like the sound of that. Very hot, boss.”_

  
_Evie shimmies out of her top and her breast bindings, then compliantly lies back down onto the desk. She knows he likes it when she looks extra submissive. “I suppose I have no choice but to allow the Bull to ride me.”_

  
_“You are the Bull’s to ride, Evie,” he tells her with a nod, reaching to undo his belt buckles. His damn pants are aggravating his cock that practically reaches for her. “It’s always a good ride.”_

  
_“How do you end up winning every single time?” she asks playfully, wrapping her arms around him as his nose and mouth become buried in her neck. She feels the sink of his teeth there too, a claiming mark. “Why do I always fall for this?”_

  
_“Ben-Hassrath, kadan. I can make you submit to the Iron Bull.”_

  
_When he thrusts inside her, he lingers there, a sweet moment. Everything about him consumes her being, and she gladly yields to it. One of his hands is buried in her hair, holding tightly, and the other grips the side of the desk. His teeth remain in her neck, and when he wants more, he forces her back to arch again underneath him, giving him all the access he craves. It isn’t much longer until he begins crashing his hips into hers, driving them both to completion that will get them through the rest of the day._

  
_Evie gasps as he fucks her, her fingers curled around one of his horns through the bounces of her body he works to create. No other sight pleases him more, the sexual way he can make her move. When he twists his hips almost violently against her, she moans, then breathes out, “I’ll always submit to the Iron Bull. Every time.”_

  
_He stops his hard pounding, but continues to move in and out of her leisurely. Removing his teeth from her skin, he looks down at her, a face he thinks is pretty. Evie hopes he knows, with everything else that he knows, that she has never felt this way for another man before. That she has never stared at one with such devotion, and willingly tied her soul to anyone other than him._

  
_“I know, boss,” he says softly, then nips at her lips before kissing her deeper, just like before. “Believe me, I know.”_

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

She hears screaming around her from voices she knows. They sound only like whispers, far away and unimportant. She also hears the clinks of blades on blades, whooshes of arrows that fly and the wet _thunk_ as the pointed tips pierce flesh. They sound only like the buzz of annoying bees or mindless chatter from people she doesn’t care about. To Evie, there is nothing to hear, nothing to pay attention to, nothing to fight. There isn’t even a dragon nearby.

  
There is only the image of the Iron Bull. The way he lifts his great blade, the way he snarls at his foes, the way he moves furiously to kill.

  
To kill her companions… and Evie too.

  
Dorian and Varric are screaming around her. They shout her name over and over again, and she even feels the nudge of her mage’s magic. She feels the shadows of the other Qunari encompassing her, feels the whoosh of the blades as they lift them high to strike her down, but still she cannot move one muscle. Her attackers are killed before they can harm her and later on, or maybe it will be years from now, she will feel terrible for standing as still as a fool as her friends try to keep her and their own bodies safe.

  
But Evie is paralyzed in devastation. The devastation consists of sickening betrayal and a murderous heartbreak, one that will possibly never leave her being. Her large sword has fallen from her grip and to the floor at her feet. It fell from her hands, a suddenly unimportant thing, as soon as Bull charged for her, and she had no strength to even run. Bull was pushed back by Dorian, but her friend has hardly spared her from pain.

  
Her chin quivers and her eyes fill mortifyingly with tears. Her hands are shaking, along with her shoulders, and all the Herald of Andraste, the Inquisitor herself, can do is remain stone still as she watches her lover betray them all. It is an agony worse than the anchor. It is a fate worse than death.

  
Her _kadan_. Her _kadan_ …

  
He wants to kill her.

  
Maybe she should shout _katoh_. _Katoh_ means it’s over, no questions asked. If he would just stop, if he would hold her and tell her it was all a mistake, she probably would believe him.

  
“Evelyn!” Dorian shouts with worry.

  
Evie can only keep her shiny and grieving eyes on the Bull, even as her companions throw themselves in front of her to protect her. The way he moves is magnificent and she still thinks so, even during a battle when he is now on the other side. She feels dead inside, dead like the eyes on his face that she doesn’t know anymore. Her lover is trying to kill her friends, but Evie cannot bring herself to lift her sword from the ground and try to take him out. She is the most powerful, but now she has suddenly become the most defenseless. How could she lift her weapon to harm him? How could she put one scratch on his body? Evie loves him. Even now, she still loves him so fiercely that she feels like she is dying in this heartbreak. That she has already died a thousand times.

  
She feels her stomach churn. She feels her knees knock together. Someone’s blood splatters on her, and she doesn’t even flinch.

  
But she falls apart internally when the Bull is once again eyeing her. Targeting her.

  
Dorian and Varric are out, somewhere. Distantly, she really hopes they ran for it. She doesn’t want to see them hurt because she’s given up, because she can’t contribute anymore, not when their enemy is her own man. She really hopes they left her to face Bull on her own. She wouldn’t blame them.

  
And somewhere inside her, she knows this is all her fault.

  
Evie still can’t move as he begins approaching her with those imposing steps of his. She feels nothing when he lifts his big hunk of metal over his shoulder, readying himself to swing it down upon her. He will strike her. She can’t hurt him, could never do such a thing, but the Iron Bull – _Hissrad_ \- will finish off the Inquisitor, and she will let him rather than put him down.

  
Nothing personal, he’d said. It’s nothing personal.

  
It’s everything to Evie.

  
Lady Trevelyan will die at the hands of her lover all because she wasn’t brave enough to kill him first.

  
All because she’d fallen helplessly for the Qunari known as _liar_.

  
Perhaps, in some ancient language she’s never heard of, Evelyn means _fool_.

  
She won’t hurt him, she can’t. Better for him to kill her and rid her of this cruel life. This crippling heartbreak. The woman who saved the world multiple times will perish as defenseless as a baby.

  
He says nothing as he readies his stance for a kill. He gives her no last words, no familiar gesture of their life together or their love. The dragon’s tooth dangles from his neck, matching the one she still wears as well, but now he wishes to leave her without a neck for her to wear it on. It seems he has forgotten it.

  
She hopes he does it. She longs for the killing blow. She doesn’t deserve her friends or her status or her life.

  
Evie never deserved the Iron Bull.

  
_Kadan. My heart_.

  
Out of the corner of her eye, Evie barely notices Dorian lift himself weakly from the floor full of dead Qunari. His arm lifts his staff.

  
Only then does Bull pull his arms back with massive blade in both hands, a perfect lineup with her neck.

  
_Only then_ …

  
And the Iron Bull doesn’t move, doesn’t take Dorian out although he is fully capable of doing so, when the mage swings his staff and sends out a gust of magic that gathers the fallen swords and unsuccessful arrows, shooting them all straight towards him.

  
Bull doesn’t even try for Evie. He just stands there, much like her, and allows his own death.

  
The numerous swords and arrows sink themselves into his flesh, some impaling him completely as splashes of blood spill out of his back.

  
Instantly, with only a sickening grunt, the Iron Bull sinks to his knees like a cut tree. The swords and arrows sticking out of his back stop him from falling to the floor completely.

  
Their present enemies are dead. Everyone is dead. Everyone.

  
Evie, with shaking hands outstretched to Bull, shrieks in overwhelming grief that makes the ground tremble.

  
The tears stream down her cheeks, bringing her black makeup with them, staining her pallor face and turning a once notable and composed noblewoman into a quivering ghost who will always remain haunted. Like Bull had, she falls to her knees with arms still reaching for him, her mouth hanging open on a now silent scream as the man she loves bleeds from a hundred different weapons protruding out of his dead body. She feels as incapable as a corpse and as frantic as a demon at the same time. She feels like her heart will explode from its hammering, but also feels like it stopped as soon as she heard the name _Hissrad._

  
_You helped me remember who I really am, kadan._

  
His voice drifts through her mind as if the Bull has been dead for years. And, Evie thinks, her throat whimpering, perhaps he had been all along. Revelation crashes into her like the weapons in her man’s body. Her lover had been struggling with his identity for years, living one way while believing another, keeping up with his work while striving to become successful at something else. Only when she had come along had his questions been answered. Only in his time with the Inquisitor would this very important Qunari be taught what matters most.

  
Evie is then graced with the image of all the faces of the Chargers in her mind.

  
The Bull’s Chargers. The Bull’s boys. The Iron Bull’s… babies.

  
And she had killed them.

  
_I won’t forget that… no matter what happens._

  
The Chargers had been the one thing to bring carefree joy and peace to his mind and heart. They had given him hope and a kind of fulfillment neither the Qun nor Evie herself could ever give to him. With them he had woken every day with purpose. With them, he had smiled just a little more. Maybe, if she’d thought about his state of mind more than her alliance, if she’d kept his babies alive, would the Iron Bull have given himself to her in the way she had done for him.

  
Maybe Evie could have saved him, if only she’d saved his boys.

  
She’s given no option now.

  
Weeping, Evie crawls over to Bull, his body propped up from the blades and arrows sticking out of his back, creating a gruesome sight. His blood is making a puddle around his body, but she doesn’t care as she goes to his head and softly caresses his cheeks. He still feels warm. Even in death will the Iron Bull warm her from the cold.

  
Evie jumps a little when she hears footsteps near her, her head whipping towards Dorian who slowly approaches her, a frown covering his pretty face.

  
“It’s not his fault,” she tells him sadly, shaking her head as her breath trembles. “It’s mine. It’s all my fault.”

  
“Evelyn,” he murmurs, kneeling down to her. “Come away.”

  
But she can’t. How can she move away from him now, when she’s realized her mistakes? When she’s discovered that Bull is dead now because she killed his heart first when she gave the order for the Chargers to hold the hill? How could she have known that whatever made the Iron Bull was torn off of him while he watched his family die? She told him, with that one order, that the Qun is more important than those you care about. Than those you love.

  
More important, even, than her.

  
His betrayal is _her_ consequence.

  
Varric wanders over, blood on his face and Bianca held delicately in his hands. He stands as close as he can to Evie while still keeping his eyes on the area around them. “Hey, mama,” he says softly, but her nickname this time doesn’t make her smile. He tries to keep his voice light although his face is just as sad as Dorian’s. The Bull had gotten along with everyone. “We can’t help him now.”

  
“He didn’t mean it,” she whispers.

  
“He made his choice.”

  
“I made this choice for him,” she tells Varric, the blood of the Bull soaking her legs. Bright, rich blood of a once good man wasted. “He needed me to save him, and I didn’t do my job. I didn’t take care of him. I should’ve gotten him out of the Qun while I had the chance, and now…” Her chin trembles again, her heart bloody chunks in her chest. “Oh, _Maker_ …”

  
“Darling, we have to get out of here,” Dorian says, his hand coming to rest on her braid. He loves Evie. She somehow became the only person he could ever show tender affection for. “We have to take care of the dragon.”

  
It’s the worst thing he could’ve said, and they all know it. Evie places her forehead onto Bull’s, softly petting the stubble on his cheek as if he could feel it. She has to go kill a dragon. For the very first time, Evie will fight an _ataashi_ without the Iron Bull there to make them all feel as if they’d just been given some great honor. _Ataashi_ , she thinks, her mind automatic again. The glorious ones.

  
There is no glory here.

  
“What will I do without him?” she asks softly, the reality of it destroying her body.

  
“Come on, mama, snap out of it,” Varric says. “Do you think he’d want to hear you say something like that? Whoever he was outside of the Qun is still the same guy who wore this every single day.” The dwarf points to the tooth around Bull’s neck. He sounds annoyed when he says it, and probably doesn’t truly believe his own words right now, but whatever will get her off the ground is what he’ll tell her. He’s a storyteller, so he’ll give her a story.

  
Staring at his necklace, even as she grieves for him and loves him terribly still, makes Evie feel foolish. She questions her relationship now, wonders if everything had been a lie, if Bull had just played his part extremely well. Maybe she should remove it from his body. Her own necklace is heavy around her neck, the symbol that was supposed to have connected them as if a ring had been around her finger.

  
But somewhere, in the remaining pieces of her shattered heart and addled mind, is the knowledge that even though he’d died as _Hissrad_ , the Iron Bull had been the one to take the necklace. He’d worn it, had died in it. Had kept it around his neck even as he betrayed them. And truly, it isn’t really betrayal at all if she betrayed him first. She doesn’t know if their love was a lie on his end, but she does know something else.

  
No matter how far apart life, or the afterlife, takes them, they’re always together.

  
Evie had made the necklace for her lover, the Iron Bull, and it will give her some kind of peace later on that when other Qunari find this place to bury their dead, they will see this soldier and know that he’d once belonged to someone. To her.

  
Hanging from the Bull’s head is his eyepatch that had broken off at some point during his impalement. She takes it in her hands, removes it completely. She can’t mourn for _Hissrad_ because she didn’t know him, but she knew the Iron Bull. To him she will say goodbye, although a part of her soul will ever remain here with his body. She tucks the eyepatch into a pocket. Eyeing his mouth, she wipes away the blood that had seeped from the corners of his lovely lips, streaming down his cheeks.

  
Evie pecks his lips as more tears fall onto his dead face.

  
“My _kadan_ ,” she whispers, touching him for the very last time.

  
She feels heartbreaking hysteria rising in her chest, which ignites her hand. Shrieking in pain, she fights through it as they take the dragon and more Qunari. She grips her blade, hisses sharply as she brings it down upon the beast’s neck over and over again. She is a broken woman now. She is a woman who is all alone, who watched her heart die in front of her.

  
Maybe her hand will kill the rest of her. She can only hope.

  
Later, as she finally faces the agent of Fen’Heral, or in reality, Fen’Heral himself, the hysteria continues to fester.

  
Solas’ words destroy her, his carefree inquiry on her Qunari friend. The face of the Bull has not left her mind since she first turned to look at him as _Hissrad_ was called into the air. Unhealthily, even as she watched the Bull fall before her eyes, she still expects him to charge through the Eluvian and chop this elf’s head off for her. She still expects her partner to fight by her side, and is crushed a billion times with every second he doesn’t show up.

  
But Solas makes her realize that the Iron Bull is dead, and never coming back.

  
When Fen’Heral uses his magic, when her friends who Solas purposely kept locked inside run through the Eluvian, Evie sways and falls to her knees again, succumbing to her hysteria.

  
“My arm,” she whimpers quietly, looking down to find a bleeding stump at her elbow.

  
“Don’t move, Evelyn,” Dorian tells her, dropping his staff and already calling fire to his hands. “Varric, hold her down.”

  
The pain, the magic, the loss of so much, make her delusional. Evie’s eyes glaze over, her head feeling light and her limbs becoming as useless as she truly is now. Images run through her mind like pictures from one of Varric’s books, as if she’s reading a tragedy of her own time as Inquisitor. She sees demons emerging from the rifts, she sees the great glory of Skyhold, she sees dragons and Corypheus and her hand that had once glowed bright.

  
She sees the Iron Bull, and as she feels immense heat nearing her ghost arm, in her delusions she smiles.

  
_You are the Bull’s to ride, Evie._

  
Dorian presses his flaming hands to her arm, and she screams, jolting as she somehow lies on her back now with Varric keeping her still and holding her face away. She shakes, watching with wide, red eyes her other hand that fists repeatedly, the weight of the dragon’s tooth sinking into her chest. The fire hurts but it is nothing compared to the greater loss.

  
“My _kadan_!” she yells, staring up at Dorian now as he pours a potion down her throat. He keeps the passage clear by holding her head back by her hair so she can swallow every drop. Varric is bandaging her elbow tightly. “Where’s my _kadan_?” she asks the mage sadly.

  
His hands feel cool now as they hold her face that is dirty from makeup and red from falling tears. “Oh, don’t cry, lovely. Just concentrate on me, yes? I promise it’s worth it.”

  
“Dorian.”

  
And even he is at a loss for words when the most heartbreaking, sad little expression consumes her face.

  
The pain in her arm and the absence of the Iron Bull is too much for her to bear. Dorian sits her up, holds her hair back as she vomits into the grass of the pretty place none of them know. After she’s done, both of the men take a side, Dorian on her left so that his magic can help soothe the bleeding. Distantly, as they head for the Eluvians that will lead them back to the Winter Palace and more appropriate healthcare, Evie feels incomplete. She’d once been unstoppable with her three boys. With her men, the Tevinter, the dwarf, and the Qunari mercenary, the Inquisitor was able to fight demons and save the world.

  
Now there are only two.

  
The one she loves the most is missing.

  
Cassandra is the first to touch her as soon as her boys get her back. Along with Dorian, the Seeker is Evie’s most treasured friend. She falls apart all over again.

  
“Inquisitor!” Cassandra gasps, running to Evie and gathering her up as she falls to the floor. The Seeker barks at those around her, shouting for healers and a ready room. And with a tenderness that looks almost foreign on her, Cassandra brushes back Evie’s hair from her face as she holds her.

  
The Inquisitor is still delirious, still in pain. Still so heartbroken.

  
“ _Kadan_ ,” she murmurs again for the thousandth time, staring up at Cassandra as if she needs her to understand her very profound words. It is all she has right now. “It means _my heart_.”

  
With confusion, the Seeker shakes her head. Glancing up, she looks around. She only counts three when four went into the Eluvian. “ _Where_ is the Iron Bull?”

  
None of them answer, but Cassandra is given it when Evie leans into her chest and begins to sob.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_There are times when she can tell something is wrong with him emotionally, although neither of them really talk about it because he somehow steers her away from discussion. There are times when she looks at him, particularly when his guard is down in such rare moments, and she can see the costs of the life he’s lived. The burdens on him are heavy and he has already submitted to defeat by them once, but the world would not let him go so easily._

  
_Hissrad had wanted re-education from Seheron, and he’d been denied even that._

  
_He wakes harshly in the middle of the night, their large room in the Winter Palace unfamiliar to him. The Bull is more used to her vast quarters at Skyhold or a simple tent as they do the work for the Inquisition. After he calms, as she watches him from her place in bed, he turns his legs and sits on the edge, his hands coolly on his bare thighs and his face staring off into the dark nothing._

  
_Evie remembers this as she grieves in reality. She remembers this night, just a night or two ago at the Palace for the council meeting while waiting for all the others to arrive. This night when the Bull had woken from nightmares or fitful sleep or the lies that would ultimately bury him._

  
_Or maybe, Evie will think days later when she is without him, maybe it was his own lingering grief that troubled him. Maybe it was all for his boys._

  
_He doesn’t know she’s awake and watching him. He remains ever still, making no expression, not even a finger tapping. Bull always sleeps naked, as does Evie since she began sleeping with him, but even the bareness of his body doesn’t keep away the sweat she can see beading on his skin. Reaching over, she softly places a hand on his thigh._

  
_He jolts, his head whipping to look at her. The Bull actually gets startled._

  
_It worries her. She knows that look, a sad, lost look._

  
_She thinks maybe the Chargers are on his mind._

  
_“Are you all right?” she asks in a whisper._

  
_The Bull is quiet while staring at her. These last couple years together have given him enough security that he will sometimes sleep without the eyepatch on, depending on where they are and how close danger is. Although the Winter Palace is a different kind of danger, tonight he doesn’t wear it. The place where his eye had once been used to be a ruined mess, but it hasn’t healed too badly. Evie is as used to his face without the eyepatch as she is with it now. The covering is mostly for everyone else who wouldn’t be able to have a normal conversation with him if his injury wasn’t concealed. He’s silent for another moment, and has to crane his head a little awkwardly so that he can see her with the side that has working vision._

  
_Finally, one corner of his mouth turns up in a grin she knows is fake. “Fine, kadan.”_

  
_It seems Evie knows him a lot better in memories, after he’s gone._

  
_He doesn’t talk about the Chargers with her, even in these years of monogamy. He will with the others when they’re out scouting or traveling, mostly defending their sacrifice, but never with her. Probably because Evie is the one who will talk about the hard things, like feelings and grief and how much he misses them. She’s tried before, has even attempted to use sex to get him to open up about his boys, but he is greater in that area than she is, and quickly punished for it. The tables are always turned because the Bull can make her sing like a bird when he’s dominating her._

  
_Evie quickly discovered that it is better to wait for him to come to her._

  
_She is still waiting, and tonight is no exception._

  
_The only way she can help him is to distract him. So she does._

  
_She sits up in bed, holding the sheet to her bare breasts, her long hair loose around her body and dark love bites resting on her pale collar. She doesn’t want thoughts of the Chargers or the Ben-Hassrath or Seheron to sadden him, doesn’t want him to relive any of it because he’s so very important to her. She would do anything to protect him from his own inner battles, this giant man she doesn’t think she can ever live without. She sits close to him, feels the heat radiating off his body, and remembers Cassandra’s adorably anxious words the day she arrived at the Palace._

  
_And because he is so very important, Evie picks up with the Bull where she and Cassandra left off._

  
_“We’ve been together a long time,” she murmurs against him, rubbing her cheek along his shoulder. She can distract him with what she now wants so desperately. “Do you ever think about going… further?”_

  
_He doesn’t move much, but his voice sounds lighter when he answers. “Don’t see how we can top that night we did it with you hanging from the chandelier. Even my creativity can only go so far.”_

  
_Nothing he says should surprise her anymore, yet somehow it always does. “Um… That’s not really what I meant.”_

  
_And he knows. He always does. “Being with you, Evie, is a choice I make every day. Binding me to it doesn’t change that. You’re my kadan.” His head turns a little, and it’s a lucky thing that he’s so big since his horns can hover right over her in whatever direction he looks. Her big pretty eyes are staring up at him, a submissive look she knows he loves. He gives her another half grin under the scratched hole in his face._

  
_Evie can only nod against his shoulder, agreeing with him. She doesn’t want to make him do anything he doesn’t truly want, and, she thinks, looking at his chest, he practically married her the Qunari way when he accepted the necklace. To him, even that was an old tradition that had seemed to die out. He doesn’t know anything else._

  
_“But,” he continues, his voice a deep baritone in the room. “I know how you like being bound. Especially by me.”_

  
_Her eyes quickly go back to his face. Only this time, they’re full of anticipation._

  
_The Bull isn’t looking at her anymore. Instead, he lifts his left hand, two fingertips missing, and stares at it. “Humans put rings on this hand, don’t they?”_

  
_Her heart swells and her smile blossoms. “Yes.”_

  
_“And they speak vows in front of all their loved ones?”_

  
_She nods vigorously. “But we can only invite whoever you want to invite. And there’s a giant party after.”_

  
_“Hmm.” He’s quiet again as he thinks, but he seems to approve of the party. “Her Holiness De fer, the Devine Victoria, is going to make me wear a shirt.”_

  
_Evie lets out a laugh, kissing his shoulder repeatedly. She can’t describe to him how much she adores him. “At this point I wouldn’t care if you showed up wearing a prettier dress than mine.”_

  
_“Now that would be a sight, wouldn’t it?”_

  
_She wants to tell him that she thinks the world of him. She wants to make sure he knows that if it meant she would get to know him, then she’s thankful for Corypheus and the breach. The Inquisitor is so in love with the Iron Bull, and soon they will belong to each other in more ways than one. Two symbols of commitment, two acceptances of both their races. A dragon’s tooth split in two, and matching rings that will adorn their slightly altered left hands._

  
_If he wakes from nightmares or whatever else that plagues him, then Evie wants to be the one to soothe him back to contentment. Forever._

  
_“Come,” she tells him, scooting back onto the pillows, her arms beckoning him closer. “Lay with me. I’ll hold you.”_

  
_He smirks over at her, shaking his head. “How cute. Usually I’m the one who holds. I need a minute, this might be too much of a rush for me.”_

  
_Her finger crooks at him threateningly. “That’s an order, Qunari.”_

  
_“Hey,” he croons, finally crawling over to her on the bed. “That’s no way to speak to the future Mr. Inquisitor.”_

  
_Oddly, she likes the sound of that. “Going to take my name, are you?”_

  
_“Would like it better if you took mine,” he says, eyeing her body as he pulls down the sheet, baring her breasts to him. He grumbles with approval at her naked skin. “But females aren’t bulls, unfortunately. I’ll have to rename you the Iron Broodmare.”_

  
_She smiles at the ridiculousness of it. She loves him desperately for his ridiculousness. “Two different species, darling.”_

  
_“Then it’s damn perfect.” He opens her legs so he can lie between them, hovering over her and no longer conflicted by whatever it was that was hurting him. His eye seems brighter for her, his limbs less tense. “You may now kiss the bride,” he declares, then proceeds to give her sloppy wet kisses upon her lips._

  
_Evie tries to playfully keep up, holding his cheeks and even managing to take his tongue that he sneaks inside her mouth. He’s a naughty one when he removes his open mouth from hers, causing a string of saliva to connect them for a brief moment. He grins when she holds him away._

  
_“That is much too dirty of a kiss for a wedding,” she scolds, grinning and wiping at her mouth._

  
_“Every kiss should be dirty, kadan,” he counters, leaning down for more. “Gimme another.”_

  
_She teasingly tries to move out of the way, then quickly submits to his mouth, sighing from the pleasure of a deep kiss in bed. They keep at it for a while, not having to worry about anything leading to sex because they’re both tired, because sometimes it’s nice to make out naked in bed. Plus, they already had sex earlier in the evening. When they finally part for sleep, her offer still standing, the Bull waits for her to get comfortable underneath him before he finally descends on her so that he can be held._

  
_Evie giggles when he growls into her chest, rubbing his face on her breasts._

  
_“You’re an animal,” she breathes with a grin._

  
_She’s propped up enough by pillows under her body that he can situate her to lie on her chest without his horns getting in the way. There’s enough room for them, and she doesn’t mind. Like his missing eye, she’s grown accustomed to his big horns, especially in bed. When he won’t stop rubbing against her breasts, grumbling like a beast, she lifts her hand and swats him on the ass._

  
_Instantly he lifts his head to stare at her. She freezes, a playful look of guilt on her face._

  
_“Interesting,” he murmurs, tilting his head. “No one’s ever spanked me before.”_

  
_“Probably because you’re the one who always does the spanking.”_

  
_He narrows his eye at her. “You’re lucky you’re awfully cute, and that I’m too tired to punish you.” He yawns big, his hands sliding themselves under her shoulders. “I won’t forget, though. I’ll reprimand you in the morning, kadan.”_

  
_When he eases back onto her chest, sleepily and snuggly this time, Evie smiles and wraps her arms around him as best as she can. “I’ll look forward to it, darling.”_

  
_He smirks, then keeps his eye on hers as pushes one breast up, and sinks his teeth into her cleavage. His bite is hardly ever gentle and now is no different, but the pain is always an exquisite one._

  
_In response, she begins to knead her fingers into the place where his horns meet in his head. It’s a sneaky, evil move that instantly relaxes him._

  
_When the Bull falls asleep, Evie is still holding him. He snores against her, loud rumbling noises against her breasts. He’s crushing her a little, but she refuses to move even an inch._

  
_Like this she feels only warmth, and forgets about the pain in her glowing hand._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Evie stares blankly at the surface of the water, some steam rising up to flush her pale cheeks. She sits in a tin bath that was placed in the middle of her quarters in the Winter Palace, trying to soothe her aching muscles from the tension of the battles with the Qunari, the loss of her arm, and the death of her love. It’s the first bath taken after her last encounter with Solas, her first bath since they carried her off to the infirmary to tend to the stump at her elbow. The Emperor Gaspard has graciously allowed her and her company to stay, keeping the council meeting off until the Inquisitor has rested from debilitating wounds. Lying in bed for a day or two left her dirty, and with her elbow wrapped for protection, with the spirit of her arm messing with her head, Evie sits in the tub with steaming water and tries to feel something.

  
Her face is deathly pale and her cheeks are sunken and her eyes are lifeless and hollow. She has yet to feel a beat in her heart, but maybe it’s just those mind tricks again, like the phantom limb hanging at her side. Her dark hair hangs limp and soaked as it floats on top of the surface, freshly washed, but it’s hard to notice, the tendrils weaving through the bath water like snakes. Turning her head some, looking away from the sunlight that drifts through the open balconies, she spots Dorian again, who sits in a chair across the room carelessly reading a book as she soaks, and waiting for her to call for him to help get her out. She needs help now, so soon after her amputation.

  
Cassandra would’ve helped her as well, but the poor Seeker is a little shy when it comes to nudity and friends, and doesn’t really know the protocol with such things. Dorian, her wonderful Dorian, has no qualms seeing Evie nude, or any woman for that matter, because there’s nothing there for him. He has an artful appreciation for the female body, but there is nothing sexual about it. He is the best person for the job, to assist the Inquisitor with her bath, and to also keep a sharp eye on the woman who is suffering in heartbreak.

  
The betrayal means nothing anymore. There is heartbreak because her man is dead, and she misses him.

  
Evie thinks about calling for Dorian now. He’ll get her out of the tub, help her dress and brush her hair. He likes doing that as he tells her how he can help Evie make her locks as lovely as his own. She can focus on him rather than the other man that really should be here, taking care of her.

  
Evie looks down at her chest instead, and sees a very faint bite mark on her breast that matches the other old love bites scattered all over her.

  
Ones… that will fade very soon.

  
And then there will be nothing.

  
She wishes then that Solas would’ve killed her.

  
Evie senses Cole before she actually sees him. Not many people remember him anymore, but the Inquisitor is used to his ways and can never forget. She can remember how drawn to the boy she and the Bull were, trying, in odd ways, to make him feel special and part of the group. Their efforts never really caught on, but for two years Cole has been with the Inquisition, popping up in a blink to try to help.  
He does so now, but Evie is so used to it, she barely even breathes at the suddenness of his presence.

  
She can see his shadow on the wall. Cole is behind her as she sits in the tub, looking down forlornly, his big hat covering his face like he’s trying to give her some privacy. Cole is a spirit in a young man’s body, and doesn’t really understand nudity and modesty, but he’s trying. He’s doing what he thinks is appropriate. Dorian doesn’t seem to be aware of him suddenly inside the room. Her mage only continues to read and wait for her, kept from the newest body in the room by magic of some sort.

  
Cole seems to have an important message for her. Evie knows he’s just trying to help.

  
She dreads it still.

  
“The Iron Bull was kind… but he was always ready underneath.”

  
Cole’s voice is soothing, knowing. Right now, it’s tearing her to bits. “Ready,” she repeats in a whisper. The boy doesn’t know what’s appropriate to say and what not to say, but she will listen anyway because for some reason, he needs her to hear it.

  
“He sees them, he sees their faces on the hill. In that moment, they look like children to him. His children. He is ripped into two different men, one with a name and one with a title. Only one may survive. The one he enjoyed, the one with the name, dies when his children stop breathing. The one called liar has nothing left anymore other than his lies. He is given _kadan_ , but the keeper of illusions consumes him when he is called upon. There is nothing but the illusion, and _kadan_ is now so far away. He is on that hill. How he wishes he were on that hill. The desire to be on the hill makes him… ready.”

  
Ready to be called by his people and do what must be done. Ready to leave her, _kadan_ , behind, because that is what she did to the Chargers. Ready, Evie thinks as she frowns, to die.

  
He died so quickly, so easily. Why did he die so quickly and so easily?

  
“I didn’t feel it,” Cole continues, and she can see in the shadow that his hands are tightly clasped. “He felt no pain. The Keeper is resilient and clever. There is only the Qun and those who are Tal-Vashoth, in the Keeper’s eyes. His friends become expendable. _Kadan_ becomes _bas_ , because that is what they say around him when he leaves her. To the Keeper of Illusions, to _Hissrad_ , there are only the orders that are fueled by the dark faces in charge. I felt nothing from _Hissrad_. He is as dead as the dragon whose tooth hangs from his neck.”

  
“ _Katoh_ ,” she whispers. With Cole’s words, Evie wants to sink her head under the bath water and fall into darkness. She wants to go back to the night her lover died, and run to the sharp edge of his blade. Anything is better than this.

  
“It means _stop_ or _enough_ ,” Cole says, almost informatively, like a child.

  
“ _Katoh_ ,” she utters again, desperately now, the water in the bath sloshing. “ _Katoh_. It’s supposed to be over. No questions asked. You’re supposed to stop.”

  
But it seems that Cole… is still not done. Whatever drives him continues on.

  
“But there is a place the dark faces could not alter. When he leaves _kadan_ and goes to them, they try to get rid of it. But he is the Keeper, and he can give illusions to even them. There is a place, a better place. A place where he does not wish to be on the hill, a place where he is given a new title and a place where they cannot find him to change him completely. The one with the name lingers there. It is where the Iron Bull goes when _Hissrad_ is called. The kind one. Our friend. It is forsaken among his kind but here… he is better.”

  
Evie can’t even focus on the shadow of Cole anymore. Her eyes are blurry with tears, and only more fall down her face. She feels the phantom of her once glowing hand that is no longer there, and wonders what a ring would’ve felt like on her finger. Would it have felt as nice as the necklace that still hangs between her breasts?

  
When Cole speaks again, he purposely makes his calm voice deeper, a new lit in his tone. One that is familiar.

  
When Cole speaks again… he saves the Inquisitor.

  
“ _Kadan. Oh, kadan, your pretty face. Kill me now_.” Cole is quiet for a moment before he continues. “This place is warm and it is a place he loves. He lingers there for a long time, staring at _kadan_ because she is beautiful. Because she is… _it_ for him.”

  
Evie’s chin trembles. This is why the Iron Bull was killed so easily.

  
“ _She will forgive me_.”

  
And Cole vanishes.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

They are free to leave the Winter Palace now, each going their separate ways and onto new ventures, although Evie will remain with her advisors and the Inquisition. They will have a new role now, but it is only a cover so that they can begin their hunt for Solas while still having access to all the Inquisition has acquired. Her friends will leave her for a little while, but they will return when they can to help. She has Dorian’s crystal in her pocket, among the other gifts from her treasured companions.

  
But before they leave each other, she has them all meet in the crisp open air outside the Palace. She needs their support as a whole one final time.

  
She needs to make things right.

  
Turning to them all, Evie shows them the eyepatch nestled in her hand.

  
“What happened with the Iron Bull wasn’t his fault. After years of struggling with his identity, he was offered a chance to be severed from the Qun. The opportunity was given to me, and I didn’t choose wisely. Because of my choice, I was not able to save him from the Ben-Hassrath. With the death of the Chargers, he was finally re-educated.” And it hurts so much to know it, to know that she could have saved him, but at the time, she had been the _Herald of Andraste_ who barely knew what she was doing. The cost had been so great, and Evie finds she needs her friends to understand.

  
“His betrayal was my fault. I betrayed him first when I didn’t think of his family. If any of you have any malice in your heart for the Bull, please know that I’m the one who deserves it. I will have to live with this loss for the rest of my life, and it is so much greater than a missing arm. Please,” she whispers, looking all of them in the eye, each and every one. “Please remember him as your brother in arms. Remember what he did for you in kindness than what I made him do in the end. Remember him with a smile, a big laugh, and the heart of a dragon. To him we give honor. For the Iron Bull, we mourn.”

  
Evie doesn’t know if the others will fully believe what she says to them, with the exception of Cole. She doesn’t know if they will truly honor her love, or stand by her side now simply for her sake. But none of them move and none of them give her a grimace. Their faces are sad, mournful. Vivienne holds a somewhat dignified frown, Blackwall nods gruffly in agreement, Sera shifts from foot to foot with tightly pursed lips and glittering eyes.

  
Right here, right now, Evie will have the chance to say farewell to her love properly.

  
She turns back to the balcony, so far up and staring down at a slim river that will slowly make its way to the sea eventually, miles away. It sparkles in the light of the sun as her friends flank her, the absence of one heavy on her shoulders.

  
“This in my hand is an important symbol of who the Iron Bull was,” Evie continues, holding up the eyepatch. “Not _Hissrad_ , but the Bull. The loss of his eye meant the gain of his peace. For Krem, for the Chargers. For us. The Iron Bull served the Inquisition half blind to save a member of his family. This is all that’s left of him.”

  
As quietness surrounds her, as the others wait, Evie takes a moment for herself. Staring down at the eyepatch, at the Bull’s love for his family, she feels a longing for him that is similar to water in the Western Approach or shelter in the Fallow Mire. She wishes he were here, more than she can bear and a longing she will live with forever. She is thankful for the duty of finding Solas, but the future after that is so frightening to her because she won’t know what to do now that she is without the Bull. In the only hand she has left, in the grip of a once powerful two-handed warrior, her thumb brushes over the eyepatch tenderly.

  
In a twisted way, she feels close to him now. There was a time when he’d needed her presence to help him mourn. She can feel what he’d felt as he held the ashes of the Chargers.

  
“For every bloody battlefield, we’ll gladly raise a cup,” Evie continues softly, the wind ruffling her long dark hair. Her heart longing, longing. “No matter what tomorrow holds.”

  
Squeezing the eyepatch now to keep her hand from shaking, she holds it over the ledge, over the pretty river that leads to the sea.

  
She wants to feel him with her. She uses his language, the one he’d fought to teach her, so that he is.

  
“ _Ataash varin kata. Asit tal-eb._ ”

  
Evie lets the eyepatch fall from her hand and to the water. They don’t have the body of the Bull to bury or send off, so this is what will have to do. She hopes, wherever he is, that he feels the same peace he’d felt with the Chargers. She hopes, wherever he is, that he is with them now, drinking together in some heavenly tavern and singing their song. And she hopes, wherever he is, that he knows she regrets not saving him, that she didn’t mean it, not really.

  
That she loves him so desperately still.

  
Her friends remain with her for a little while longer, the ones closest to her coming to give her affection as she mourns her love. Cassandra is by her side, her simple presence next to Evie giving her all kinds of strength. Sera starts throwing little rocks and tiny flowers into the air and over the ledge. Devine Victoria, Vivienne, casts sparks of fire to the river, little bits of light falling down that make the air pretty. After a while they all leave, one by one, off to do what calls to them next. Before he leaves her, Dorian takes Evie’s cheeks and kisses her right on the mouth. It makes her smile, although Dorian will be the only man to kiss her for quite some time. He pats her pocket where he knows the sending crystal is, reminding her.

  
Soon Evie is all alone, staring down at the river. She reaches up and grasps the dragon’s tooth. Because of this, she is forever connected to the Iron Bull, no matter how far apart life takes them.

  
“My _kadan_ ,” she whispers into the wind. She knows the days forward will be hard and lonely. She knows that during most of those days, she will not feel as calm as she does today. But there is always a coming dawn. “ _Panahedan_.”

  
We’re always together.

  
Evie hopes, wherever he is, that her _kadan_ forgives her.

 

_The End_

**_"We used to swim in the same moonlight waters, oceans away from the wakeful day." - Nightwish_ **

**Author's Note:**

> This didn't happen to my Inquisitor, but just knowing it exists triggered me in an odd way. The only thing that seemed to help was to write this, so I hoped you liked it, in an angsty kind of way. A little reimagining of the Iron Bull romance in Trespasser. If you'd like, come visit me at Tumblr. I'd love to chat. [My Tumblr](http://poisonous-angel.tumblr.com/)


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